Sonya

Sonya Casto and her siblings are being raised by their grandparents in one of Ohio’s "Skip Generation” families.

“There are times it’s really hard. But in the end you get past it and realize there are people there...There’s always somebody there.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

Sonya Casto seems to be living the 15-year-old dream. This summer, she moved to Port Clinton, Ohio. She’s dating the high school quarterback,
and playing in the marching band. Her grades are good. Her friends are better. It feels like a hopeful start her second year of high school and it’s a very long way from where she’s been.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

In 2010, photographer Maddie McGarvey, then 19, met 8-year-old Sonya Casto. Sonya had already been removed from an abusive household, passed through foster care and been adopted by her grandmother.
Sonya is among some 200,000 children in Ohio being raised by a grandparent or other kin. Maddie set out to profile one of these “skip generation” families and met the Castos, who welcomed her into their lives.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

Before her fifth birthday, Sonya had experienced abuse severe enough to put her in the hospital. Her mother pleaded guilty to child endangerment in 2006. The state removed Sonya from the home. Having been told that Sonya’s grandparents had died, the state placed Sonya in the foster care system.
When her grandmother Lorrie found out Sonya was in the system, she made a promise: “I will fight tooth and nail until I get her,” she said. It took nearly a year.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

When Sonya was 5, the state awarded her grandparents custody of her and her three-month-old baby sister, Paige. Two years later, their little brother, Seth, also came to live with Lorrie and her husband, Lee.
Lorrie had imagined she and Lee were headed into their golden years. “Our dream was to buy a motorhome and to travel,’’ says Lorrie. Instead, she found herself grateful for the safety of her grandchildren, but trying to figure out how to make ends meet.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

Lorrie and Lee enrolled their grandchildren in school and made sure they went to church. One Mother’s Day, the kids were among the youth at the Oak Grove Wesleyan Church who learned a song entitled “I Love Mommy.” The Castos changed the lyrics to “I Love Grandma.”
“We’ve had hard times,” says Lorrie. “But I don’t want to see them anywhere else. What else is a grandmother for? If a mom can’t take care of kids, then you back up and Grandma has to take care of them. They’re my kids now.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

Even at age 9, Sonya kept an eye on Seth and Paige. Fear gripped her, and sometimes night terrors ruptured her sleep. In the 5th grade, Sonya began counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder. “At first it was hard,” says Sonya. “If I didn't have people to talk to I would have given up a long time ago.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

When Maddie traveled back to Ohio to photograph the Castos at a family wedding in 2014, she couldn’t believe how much Sonya had grown. “She wasn’t a kid anymore,” remembers Maddie.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

Twelve-year-old Sonya’s care toward her siblings had developed into something like mothering. She had also begun to be aware of herself. “She was dressing more adult, acting more adult,” Maddie remembers. “She was carrying kids around, getting them ready. And looking at herself in the mirror like a preteen would. She was examining the world and herself.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

Maddie and Sonya would take long walks through the woods near the Castos’ house in Carbondale. “There was always this spark I saw in her,” Maddie remembers. Even as a child, says Maddie, Sonya “had been through more than I had in my life. She was so resilient.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

Across Ohio, households headed by grandparents struggle financially. Nearly a third of them live in poverty, as opposed to about a fifth of “traditional” households headed up by parents. Lorrie and Lee have burned through their savings to raise their grandchildren. But they scrimp and save. In May, the family packed and moved from Carbondale to Port Clinton, where they had relatives, leaving behind the place the Casto kids had always called home.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

Just before Sonya’s first day of her sophomore year in Port Clinton, Maddie went to visit her. She had turned 15 and joined the band; she had a gaggle of friends and had met a boy.
Maddie snapped photos of Sonya and her boyfriend as they walked through Port Clinton. “They were talking about things they’ve been been through with a lot of clarity and reflection,” says Maddie. “They were saying, ‘This is what I’ve gone through and I’m a stronger person for it.’”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

For Sonya, hardship has also meant familial responsibilities. “I’m the oldest and the role model type and I’m always there for them,” she says. “My grandma and grandpa are getting older and they've got more medical issues. Sometimes I take on a big load.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

Sonya has already already started to think about what she’d like to do next. “I want to go for nursing tech,” she says. “My grandpa has a lot of health issues so I have always had to help him with his medicines. And I like doing that.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

Living in Port Clinton has already opened up new opportunities for the Casto kids. For two years, Lorrie would haul Sonya 45 minutes to soccer practices and games in their van. “It was just too hard running her back and forth,” says Lorrie, “and gas prices.” Sonya had to quit.
Now she can walk to marching band practice and to visit friends. “She’s doing great,” says Lorrie. “She still has some nightmares. But she just wipes it away and goes on.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

Lorrie still spends a lot of time trying to figure out how the $1,900 in social security and government support they live off of will get her family through the month. “We get $164 a month in food stamps,” says Lorrie. “Try to feed five people on that.”
Nevertheless, the Castos, and the photographer who has followed them for nearly a decade, see the move as a reset. “It’s a fresh start,” says Maddie.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

Sonya has begun to open up about what she’s been through. “There are times I feel judged, but then I know quite a bit of people who went through something I’ve been through, or worse even,” she says. “So I don’t see them making fun of me or judging me because of it. Because they know the feeling.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

When Sonya hangs out with her girlfriends they talk about normal teenage stuff. The school dress code: “They say shoulders turn guys on so they don’t want us showing shoulders,” says Sonya. The politics of teenage dating: “Guys think girls are always the ones who mess up relationships,” she says.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

On the first Friday of the school year, hundreds of fans turned out to watch Sonya and the marching band give the school football team a cacophonous welcome. Port Clinton beat Rossford High School handily. Sonya loves to see her team win. She’s also more open to failure than she used to be.
“I always thought that once I made a mistake I should just give up and stop trying,” she says. “But you never want to give up no matter what. Made a mistake? Erase it and keep moving forward, try again. Don't give up. Ever.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

To Maddie, the Castos “could be any family in America.” Blended families, hardship, and resilience are “the reality of families” today, she says. And that’s what she wants to convey through the Castos’ story. “I hope that they can see how much they’ve gone through, sacrificed and struggled and triumphed.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

When Sonya babysits her young counsins, she takes each of them by the hand, as she used to do with her younger siblings.
“I am very thankful my grandparents went through everything they did to have me with them,” she says. “The only reason I have stayed as strong as I have is because I have many wonderful family and friends who stuck by my side and never gave up on me.’’

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Maddie McGarvey

The choice to uproot and move to Port Clinton wasn’t easy. Lorrie is still piecing together furniture for the two-bedroom home. But Lorrie feels proud as she watches her granddaughter grow up, and persevere. “If it was me going through everything that she’s been through I don’t think I’d be here,” says Lorrie. But when she looks at Sonya, she sees possibility. “She’s thriving,” says Lorrie. “There’s not one thing that this girl can’t do.”